Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T13:51:25.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Value Orientations: Australian Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

D.R. Massey
D.R. Massey*
Affiliation:
Schonell Educational Research Centre, University of Queensland
Get access

Extract

As early as 1938 Elkin, discussing traditional Aboriginal society, maintained that Aborigines are orientated collectively, or place high value on the extended kin group (Barwick, 1964; Becket, 1964; Fink, 1964), see themselves as existing in harmony with nature and have no conception of time in the European sense, but live only for the present and remember the past as an integral part of the present. Most anthropologists tend to agree with such propositions. (p.288)

But, are these same values held by non-tribal Aboriginals in contemporary Australia? Certainly conventional wisdom suggests that they are (Eckermann, 1973, p.470). Similarly, there is widespread acceptance of non-Aboriginal Australians as individualistic, future oriented, preferring ‘doing’ to ‘being’, and placing emphasis on mastery over nature (Binnion, 1976, p.34). Is this so?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 6 , Issue 5 , November 1978 , pp. 10 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barwick, D.E.: The self-conscious people of Melbourne. In Reay, M. (Ed.), Aborigines Now. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1964.Google Scholar
Becket, J.: Assimilation in New South Wales. In Reay, M. (Ed.), Aborigines Now. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1964.Google Scholar
Binnion, J.: Education for Aborigines. S.A. Govt Printer, Adelaide, 1976.Google Scholar
Dawson, J.L.M.: Aboriginal attitudes towards education and integration. In Taft, R., Dawson, J.L.M. and Beasley, P. (Eds). Attitudes and Social Conditions. A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1970.Google Scholar
Eckermann, A-K.: An ethnographic analysis of three Aboriginal communities including a comparative and cross-cultural examination of value orientations. B.A. (Hons) thesis, Uni. of O., 1973.Google Scholar
Eckermann, A-K.: Value orientations. In Kearney, G.E., de Lacey, P.R. and Davidson, G.R. (Eds), The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians. Wiley, Sydney, 1973.Google Scholar
Fink, R. : Guided social change at the community level. In Reay, M. (Ed.), Aborigines Now. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1964.Google Scholar
Hausfeld, R.G.: Value orientations, change and stress. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Uni of Sydney, 1972.Google Scholar
Hohn, N. and McConnochie, K.R.: Time perspective in Aboriginal children. In Kearney, G.E. and McElwain, D.W. (Eds), Aboriginal Cognition. Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1976.Google Scholar
Kearney, G.E. and Fitzpatrick, D.G.: Five psychological variables which distinguish between two groups of Aboriginal Australians with different levels of acculturation. In Kearney, G.E. and McElwain, D.W. (Eds), Aboriginal Cognition. Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1976.Google Scholar
Kluckhohn, F.R. and strodtbeck, F.L.: Variations in Value Orientations. Row, Peterson, New York, 1961.Google Scholar
Massey, D.R.: Locus of control and value orientations; a cross-cultural study. Unpublished Diploma of Psychology thesis, Uni. of Q., 1974.Google Scholar
Peak, G.: Achievement orientation among part-Aborigines and European Australians in N.S.W. Unpublished B.A.(Hons) thesis, Uni. of Sydney, 1966.Google Scholar
Spalding, I.: Caucasian myths – ancient and modern. The Aboriginal Child at School, 1 (4), 1973.Google Scholar
Watts, B.H.: Some determinants of the academic progress of Australian Aboriginal adolescent girls, unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Uni. of Q., 1970.Google Scholar